Tip #4 - Use A-G to Jump to Staff Line Positions

When entering notes on Treble and Bass staff lines the most tedious part is positioning the caret at the right staff line position before entering each note. The most efficient way to to speed this part up when is by using the a-g keys to move the caret to the correct staff line position, then hitting the note code.

It works like this: "lower" case (a-g) moves the caret LOWer, and "upper" case (A-G) moves the caret UP. If the caret is on the middle B staff line hit "c" to jump it down to Middle C (one ledger line below the staff). "C" will jump it up to the C just above the middle staff line. Hitting "C" again will jump it up to the C two ledger lines above the staff. It doesn't matter if you have CapsLock - even if you have CapsLock on to enter a series of down stem notes you still use Shift + a-g to move up, and plain a-g to move down.

If you use arrow keys, you might enter notes like this:

q, down, down, q, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, q, q, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, q, up, up, q, etc.

Using a-g to position the caret you'd simply type:

q, c, q, c, q, q, C, q, E, etc. - MUCH more efficient!

I can read music, but (fortunately) my brain sees a note and plays the right fingering, rather than think "that's a C, I'll finger a C, and now I'll play a C,... etc." So I discovered I'm not very good at identifying staff lines and I tended to use the arrow keys a lot. But like touch typing, forcing yourself to do something which at first seems difficult soon becomes rewarding, so I suggest you enter a piece of music and forbid yourself from using the Up/Down arrow keys. Soon you'll be used to moving the caret efficiently, and you'll also learn to identify staff notes better too, which is a very useful musical bonus!

I include a handy chart for identifying staff line positions with the extra sheets included in your MusEdit package, and it can also be found in Appendix A of the manual. I'm also attaching it to this message...

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